I wondered that too. I don't know if it would be worth the enginnering to swap the knobs - most everything else we get here is identical to LHD - except the actual steering wheel and pedal position etc! :rolleyes:

For example, on most (Japanese etc.) cars in NZ, the left stalk is headlight, wipers etc. and the indicators etc. are on the right stalk. On Euro cars, the stalks are reversed, i.e. the indicators are on the left... I've gotten pretty good at doing the mind-swap as I jump from my BMW (LHD stalks), my daughter's VW Golf (LHD stalks) and the wife's Mazda (RHD stalks). On rare occasions, I'll pull up to an intersection in my wife's Mazda and turn on the wipers.... :rofl:

Manual transmission Euro cars can be a handful to drive around town, given the same hand is required for both gear shifting and operating the indicator stalk….

Some Euro cars here even still have the centre console layout from the LHD version, putting the park brake handle over next to the passenger (left) seat!!! :confused:

I think the Avant intelligently has the built in microphone located centrally, the 2 android units I have had in my E53 and E83 had/have the microphone on the left hand side of the front panel, adding several inches from the driver in our right hand drive vehicles.

My wife are from Thailand. She have a RHD Honda we use when we go there. They drive on the left side. Imagine me coming from a right side traffic land and used to drive a LHD car . I will spare u the rest! Hahahahaha….

U are right!
Attachment 78034

My last LHD experience was driving a rental Chevy Suburban from Las Vegas to Santa Monica, via some sections of Route 66. What fun! :thumbup:

You get used to it pretty quickly, especially on larger freeways. Gotta be careful on left turns and remember go wide and over to the right, rather than hugging the curb!! ;)

A very big and from the heart THANK YOU Overboost!
 

This is incredible. I came into this Community as a new BMW E53 owner and asked for some help with Bluetooth and handsfree and ended up buying a Avin Avant-4 from "Overboost". I am so happy there still are honest and friendly people out there. I have now ordered mounting brackets and iBus+I-BUS App - OBC+DSP License. Can not wait to get it in my dash.
Thank U again OB. If you need anything, dont hesitaste to ask me. Reasonable things thou…..:rofl::rofl::rofl:

We are a small family of X5 enthusiasts here and all of us are happy to help out other members. You have found the premier forum for keeping your E53 looking and performing at its best. :thumbup:

Once your Avant-4 arrives, we can help with all the programming all the nice little features that unit provides. I would spend some time looking through the Avant-4 posts from around the net and see how flexible the system can be. One of our members even made a video of a complete install on a nav equipped car (not applicable in your instance) but watching the install gives great information.

https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...ideo-link.html

Looking at your linked video, I am pretty happy I dont have to install a new harness from the trunk. :cool:

What I am thinking about now, is to buy a mic and wire it while waiting for the "big bang" to arrive. Or is the mic in the head unit ok for a decent phone call??

Yes it seems to work fine. I did install mine in the overhead console as posted in that thread I linked. Sound is probably much better on the other end of my calls since the mic is inches away from my speaking instead of feet. :dunno:

It is a simple 3.5mm jack on the harness for the external mic so you could try the internal mic and if you want to change it later, you could do it when you add the rear cam.

https://xoutpost.com/attachments/x5-...522_133847.jpg

Good idea!! :iagree: